Putting a Humorous Twist on the Mundane

If I Suddenly Woke Up with Psychic Visions……

I’d get my head examined….literally. Since the main character in my book basically has this very strange phenomenon happen to her, I dove into this topic looking for scientific explanations of psychic visions.

Since most of what I found is boring and consists of very large words I can’t pronounce, let alone spell, I decided to sum it up. Your welcome.

The first thing I’d do if I woke up with visions is make an appointment to see my primary care doctor who would probably take blood and urine samples for a drug screen. Drugs are bad! Among the large number of problems they cause, auditory and visual hallucinations are near the top. Once my doctor confirmed that I wasn’t on drugs, he or she would probably order a CT scan to rule out a brain injury or possible stroke – two other scientific reasons for hallucinations.

After the CT scan fails to find anything, my primary care doctor would probably refer me to a neurologist for an MRI and possibly another round of CT scans.

Because, in this scenario, I’m psychic, the neurologist would send me back to my primary care doctor after finding nothing wrong with my gray matter or any other part of my brain that could cause hallucinations.

The only thing left for my primary care doctor to do would be to refer me to a psychiatrist who would review the all the results of all the tests done; possibly ordering more exams to rule out brain abnormalities only to conclude I’m not crazy and don’t fit the diagnostic criteria for any psychiatric disorder.

If you’re still reading this – and I hope you are – you’re probably asking yourself, “Why is she telling me all this? None of this is interesting or paranormal in nature.”

Well, I stumbled on something during the course of my research that was very interesting – to me.

The Charles Bonnet Syndrome. According to Wikipedia as well as a few other websites, Charles Bonnet was a doctor who found cases of a elderly patients suffering from visual hallucinations. These patients, other than being elderly, had nothing wrong with them. They were physically and mentally the picture of health – except for one minor detail. They had failing eye sight due to lack of stimulation that somehow caused visual hallucinations. Charles Bonnet found that the hallucinations could be drastically reduced if the patients engaged themselves in more visually or socially stimulating activities. This is another scientific explanation for visions.

To sum it up:

If I woke up with psychic visions I’d have the following examinations:

None of these tests, including the Charles Bonnet Syndrome, would help me. Why? Because in this scenario I’m a psychic.

Just in case you’re wondering – I don’t do this research because I’m bored. My main character is very scientific in nature. She approaches everything from a scientific point of view; therefore when she wakes up one day with psychic visions she’s going to look for a scientific explanation. That’s how I landed here.

Even if you are tested for any chemical compounds floating around your system there is no guerntee that they would find what they are testing for. Also tests are usually made for one of two types of drugs. Your character could've simply walked by a "Leaf of God" plant growing naturally and had extraordinary psychadelic dreams. The plant never would've shown up in a drug test either.